In the days that followed, the courtyard lived up to Ling Feng's promise.
Morning light spilled over the Everlasting Courtyard's tiled roofs, filtered into soft gold by the leaves of the ancient tree towering over the pavilion. Before the academy bells finished ringing, that pavilion was already full.
Li Shangyuan and Chen Baojiao sat opposite one another, legs folded, jade table between them covered in scrolls and jade slips. Pure jade and tyrannical springs—their auras clashed and intertwined as they argued over how to weave physiques into new killing blows.
"When you rotate like that, you're still wasting thirty percent of the rebound," Li Shangyuan said quietly, tapping a jade finger against the table. "That energy leaks out as shockwaves."
"That 'leak' is what sends people flying," Chen Baojiao replied, chin tilting up, tyrannical aura flaring just a bit. "It's dramatic."
Ling Feng, who had just walked by with a teapot, snorted.
"Drama is for young masters trying to impress girls," he said, setting the pot down and ruffling Shangyuan's hair from behind. "You're my girls. You hit once, they stay down. That's really cool."
Chen Baojiao's eyes curved, amused and pleased in equal measure, even as she sniffed. "Then help me condense it more, Young Noble."
Ling Feng smiled, saying, "Let's get to it then."
Xu Pei and Chi Xiaodie practiced in the open courtyard, halberd and sword moving side by side.
Xu Pei's halberd sweeps were clean and precise, the modified Heavenly Dao Academy merit law giving her movements a crystalline sharpness that hadn't been there when she first arrived. Every thrust landed exactly where it should, violent energy compressed tight instead of leaking out in chaos.
By her side, Chi Xiaodie's sword arcs were heavier, rooted, Lion's Roar techniques forced to carry the steady, turtle-like foundation Ling Feng had drilled into her. Her blade no longer lunged like a reckless lion; it stalked, then pounced from an unshakeable stance.
"Again," Ling Feng called from the pavilion, not even looking, pouring tea for Xu Pei with one hand while flicking a pebble with the other.
The pebble struck Xu Pei's halberd right as she completed a form. Her stance shook, but did not collapse. She grit her teeth and forced the violent energy to spiral through the modified circulation he'd taught her, not explode outward.
"Better," he said. "If your form breaks because of a pebble, what happens when someone throws a mountain at you?"
Chi Xiaodie's lips curled. "Then we throw it back," she muttered.
"That's the spirit," Ling Feng said, grinning. "Keep going."
At the far edge of the courtyard, Bai Jianzhen stood alone, sword in hand, silently cutting dao lines into the morning air.
Each stroke was simple, almost plain. Yet with every swing, the world around her seemed to thin by a hair. Sword paths invisible to ordinary eyes traced themselves through the sky—straight, ruthless, without ornament.
More than once, visiting elders from Heavenly Dao Academy had watched from afar and silently turned away, not daring to disturb that sword intent.
Bing Yuxia sat not far away on a stone bench, fan half-open in her hand. She looked relaxed, ankles crossed, posture languid. Frosty dao threads coiled around her like an invisible snowstorm, drifting into the Heaven Cutting Tablet hovering above her palm and the Cold Mirror floating behind her shoulder.
Every so often, the Heaven Cutting Tablet would vibrate, a vicious, ancient qi trying to run wild.
"Behave," she murmured, eyes half-lidded. Chaos-infused frost dao wrapped around the tablet, smothering the surge, integrating another sliver of that terrifying power into her control.
Sometimes Su Yonghuang sat quietly with tea, watching all of them with the steady gaze of a sect master who had seen too many eras rise and fall.
Other times, she stood beside Ling Feng under the ancient tree, adding a sharp, sect-master's perspective to his lazy explanations when the other girls' minds began to drift.
And more often than not, when Ling Feng started showing off too much—spinning some ridiculous metaphor, teasing until ears turned red—Su Yonghuang would give him a single look over the rim of her cup.
Enough.
He'd sigh, roll his shoulders, and change the topic… but only after sneaking in one last shameless line that left at least one girl's heart pounding.
At noon, they ate together beneath the tree, dishes from Cleansing Incense, Heavenly Dao Academy, Lion's Roar Gate, and Ice Feather Palace all sharing one table.
At dusk, they walked the academy's stone paths, Ling Feng in the middle, hands linked with two women while the others flanked him. Their mere presence made passing disciples lower their heads, too intimidated to look directly at the casual young man surrounded by beauties who could shake kingdoms.
And at night…
Well.
The lights in the small building adjacent to the courtyard stayed on very late.
No one asked too many questions.
The nights were Ling Feng's treasured chaos.
The days were his chosen battlefield.
He threw himself into both without holding back.
...
Time did not crawl.
It surged.
Within a single season, the Eastern Hundred Cities felt four earthquakes of dao.
The first began with thunder over Heavenly Dao Academy.
It was a clear day.
Then the sky above the Everlasting Courtyard darkened without warning, as if an invisible hand had drawn a curtain across the sun.
A pressure rolled out in waves.
Disciples who had been meditating elsewhere in the academy jerked awake, hearts pounding, blood energy roaring in response.
"What's happening?"
On the pavilion roof, Ling Feng stood with his hands clasped behind his back, black hair loose, expression relaxed—almost bored—as he watched the heavens gather their anger.
Below, Li Shangyuan and Chen Baojiao sat cross-legged in the center of a complex formation he had personally laid.
Chaos lines ran along the ground like molten silver, merging seamlessly with Heavenly Dao Academy's own dao patterns as if they'd always belonged there. If one looked carefully, they would see traces of Immortal Emperor-level inscriptions hidden within those lines—concepts stolen from burial grounds and old graves, infused with Chaos Energy and simplified into something the world could tolerate.
In front of each woman flickered eight small, incomplete palaces—phantoms of Fate Palaces just shy of solidifying. Between them floated a cauldron the size of a small house: the Myriad Heavenly Cauldron, its surface engraved with countless dao runes Ling Feng had reforged using materials from the Ancient Heavenly Corpse Burial Ground.
Inside the cauldron, Chaos Energy roiled with refined spirit medicine. The broth of light boiled quietly, emitting a thick, sacred fragrance that made nearby disciples feel their cultivation loosen just by breathing it.
"Alright," Ling Feng called down, voice lazy but clear. "Last step. Yuan, Baojiao—don't hold back. Tear through it."
Li Shangyuan opened her eyes.
Pure jade light blossomed from every pore.
Her physique, long since refined by Chaos Force, made her meridians gleam like a river carved from crystal jade. Energy surged through her without friction, flowing faster and deeper with each loop.
Behind her, six Fate Palaces blazed in a neat row—each one like a miniature jade world, their dao lines intricate and sharp.
Above them, a seventh outline trembled into existence. Faint dao marks crawled across it, struggling to settle into a pattern the heavens would acknowledge.
"Pure Jade Sacred Heart Art—complete circulation," she whispered.
The jade light compressed inwards until it was a single point at her heart.
Then it exploded outward in absolute silence.
At the same time, Chen Baojiao laughed.
"Finally," she said, voice full of tyrannical joy.
Her Tyrannical Valley Immortal Spring Physique roared awake within her. Countless springs surged in her flesh and bones.
Her own six Fate Palaces lit up like volcanoes erupting one after another. Dao patterns grew denser, fiercer, while a seventh and eighth palace began to condense overhead like storm clouds forged from molten steel.
Li Shangyuan's seventh Fate Palace suddenly solidified with a deep, bell-like tone that reverberated through the academy.
The instant it locked into place, the world around her changed.
Dao lines that had once been hazy snapped into focus. Her grand dao felt like an endless jade river flowing through a sky full of stars; every breath drew in more starlight.
Above her, the eighth palace quivered, then crashed down, seating itself behind the seventh like a second sun rising.
Across from her, Chen Baojiao's eighth Fate Palace descended like a tyrant's decree.
Torrents of energy erupted from her body, smashing against the edge of Ling Feng's formation. Each pulse would have pulverized an ordinary Royal Noble into blood mist, yet here, the bursts merely roared along the Chaos lines, feeding back into the cauldron and returning as refined essence.
Silence fell.
Then—
"Ancient Saints," one of Heavenly Dao Academy's elders breathed, spiritual sense sweeping the courtyard and recoiling as if burned.
They did not say Ling Feng's name aloud.
They did not dare.
But the entire Eastern Hundred Cities knew which terrifying figure's courtyard could provoke a scene like this.
On the pavilion roof, Ling Feng watched his two women slowly open their eyes.
Li Shangyuan's gaze was clearer than ever, jade light still lingering at the corners like dew.
Chen Baojiao's eyes sparkled with battle intent, a wild, tyrannical joy burning in them.
"How do you feel?" Ling Feng asked.
Li Shangyuan drew a quiet breath, hands coming together over her heart.
"…Like I can finally see the outline of the mountain I've been climbing," she said softly. "Before, I only saw fog. Now… I see cliffs."
"Like I can punch a hole in the sky," Chen Baojiao said at the same time, grinning fiercely.
Ling Feng laughed, the sound easy and warm.
"Good," he said. "Then next time some old fogey insults your man, you can try."
Li Shangyuan's ears flushed the faintest shade of pink.
Chen Baojiao snorted. "They won't even have time to talk before I knock their teeth out."
The formation slowly dispersed, Chaos lines dimming.
The aura of two Grand Dao Ancient Saints lingered in the air long after.
...
The second tremor did not come from the sky.
It came from below.
It began with three overlapping pulses of Nine Stars Eternal Prestige.
Deep in the academy's restricted training grounds—an area Ling Feng had half-borrowed, half-seized from under Old Daoist Peng's nose by simple virtue of being stronger—Xu Pei, Bai Jianzhen, and Chi Xiaodie stood in a triangular formation.
Ling Feng sat cross-legged a short distance away on a stone platform, fingers idly rolling a small ring made from some unfortunate Virtuous Paragon's refined soul. Chaos Force surged quietly around him, shoring up the arrays. Every time the training ground's original formation creaked under the strain, his Chaos Energy slipped in and repaired the cracks.
"Remember," he said, eyes half-closed. "You're not racing each other. You're racing the sky. Focus on your own road."
Xu Pei's grip tightened around her azure halberd.
The Violent Cloud Chant she practiced was no longer the wild, wasteful furnace technique Heavenly Dao Academy had taught countless disciples. Ling Feng had taken the raw power and carved it down. Now, when she circulated it, the violent energy did not explode outward in chaotic waves—it rotated, compressed, and then released in controlled bursts, like artillery shells launched from a fortress.
When she activated it this time, the ground under her feet cracked—but the cracks were straight, each fracture aligned with her stance.
Behind her, five Fate Palaces lit one by one, azure halos blooming.
A sixth outline appeared, wavering between existence and collapse.
"Nine Stars Eternal Prestige—condense," Bai Jianzhen murmured.
Sword intent gathered around her like a silent galaxy. Each of her Fate Palaces became a star; they lined up along an invisible sword spine, forming a constellation that felt like it could pierce the heavens.
The sixth star flickered. For a moment, it brightened so intensely it seemed it would burn itself out, then dimmed, threatening to be extinguished.
Chi Xiaodie's body was wreathed in faint golden light.
Lion's Roar dao, Royal Noble heritage, Heavenly Turtle steadiness—everything Ling Feng had rammed into her cultivation finally meshed. Her five Fate Palaces were like five roaring lions; the sixth, half-formed palace had the shadow of an ancient turtle curled within, steady and unyielding.
The three auras spiraled together.
Above them, tribulation clouds didn't simply gather.
They coalesced into a single, vast Fate Palace phantom with three cores, as if the heavens themselves could not decide whether these three were one fate or three separate destinies.
Lightning crawled across that phantom palace. The air grew heavy, each breath feeling like molten lead pouring into the lungs.
Ling Feng smiled faintly, eyes opening.
"Break," he said.
The Chaos Emeralds pulsed within his inner void.
Space around the three girls thickened, then stretched—just enough to buffer the impact as all three slammed into their bottlenecks at the same time.
Thunder boomed.
The phantom palace shattered into three streams of light.
Each stream shot down, burrowing into the bodies below.
Xu Pei's sixth Fate Palace congealed first. Her halberd aura shot up like a spear piercing the clouds, a straight azure pillar that rammed into the tribulation and split it.
Her Nine Stars Eternal Prestige flared, each star around her Fate Palaces locking into a tighter, more vicious orbit.
Bai Jianzhen's sixth palace followed, its form unlike any ordinary structure.
Within that Fate Palace, one could vaguely see a solitary sword stuck in a bleak field of stone. No wind, no birds, no other dao—only that single sword, unyielding in an empty world.
Chi Xiaodie's sixth palace rumbled into existence like a lion roaring across ancient battlefields. Its walls were carved with roaring beasts and endless armies kneeling beneath a single, massive gate—the ancestral platform of Lion's Roar Gate, etched into the bones of her fate.
Outside, if someone had been watching from far above Heavenly Dao Academy, they would have seen three pillars of light rise at once, smashing apart the calamity tribulation clouds before slowly settling into six-pointed halos.
Three new Enlightened Beings, each crowned with Nine Stars Eternal Prestige.
Inside the training ground, the air vibrated.
Then it stilled.
Ling Feng rose, dusting off his sleeves as if he'd just finished a nap.
"Well done," he said.
Xu Pei stumbled forward, eyes wide, chest rising and falling quickly.
"…Feng," she whispered, forgetting titles, using his name the way she did when they were alone. "I… I really…"
"Yeah," he said, reaching out to ruffle her hair with easy affection. "You really did it."
She leaned into his touch for a heartbeat before straightening, eyes shining.
Bai Jianzhen's gaze was calm, but her sword hand trembled once.
"Next time," she said quietly, "I want to try crossing blades with someone at Heavenly Sovereign level."
Ling Feng chuckled.
"Sure," he replied. "I'll find you a sandbag."
Chi Xiaodie clenched her fists, Lion's Roar blood surging like a golden tide.
"Royal Noble… Enlightened Being…" she muttered, tasting the realms as if they were wine. "One day, I will stand atop Lion's Roar Gate's ancestral platform and roar loud enough for the entire Mortal Emperor World to hear."
Ling Feng grinned.
"Good," he said. "On that day, I'll cheer from the side and embarrass you in front of all your ministers."
"…You are impossible," she snapped on reflex—but the edges of her lips had already curled upward, betraying her.
...
The third tremor did not just shake Heavenly Dao Academy.
It swept through the entire Eastern Hundred Cities.
It began with snow.
On a clear day.
In midsummer.
Thin flurries descended from a sky that had been perfectly blue moments before. Golden sunlight glittered off the falling snow, turning every flake into a tiny, spinning mirror.
People looked up from city streets and sect courtyards, staring in confusion as frost formed on rooftops, on spirit beasts' fur, on the surfaces of ancient dao weapons.
In remote ice caves in the north, Ice Feather Palace's distant observers straightened abruptly.
"Her aura…" one elder whispered, staring toward the Eastern Hundred Cities. "She's… opening another Fate Palace?"
Within the deepest training chamber of the Everlasting Courtyard, Bing Yuxia sat with Ling Feng.
The chamber was carved from jade-like stone, its walls etched with cold dao patterns Ling Feng had drawn by hand, fusing Ice Feather heritage with his Chaos insights.
Today, her usual white garments were gone. In their place, she wore a simple blue cultivation robe, sleeves rolled back to her wrists. Her fan lay closed beside her on the floor, forgotten for once.
In her hands rested the Heaven Cutting Tablet, its ancient surface emitting a faint, ominous glow. Behind her floated the Cold Mirror, its surface smooth as a frozen lake, reflecting nothing at all.
Above her head, nine Fate Palaces hovered in perfect order.
Each palace was a different shade of ice—frost-blue, glacier-white, the translucent purity of frozen rivers. In each, one could see the shadow of an Ice Feather dao: Blizzard Wings, Frost Lotus, Ice Prison, Frozen River, and more.
The tenth Fate Palace was only a faint outline. Every time she pushed her grand dao forward, that outline quivered, almost forming a roof, then dissolving again, restrained by the ancient habits of her lineage.
Ling Feng leaned against the chamber wall, arms folded, hooded eyes watching her.
"You know," he said conversationally, as tribulation clouds began to gather far above the courtyard, "most cultivators would be happy with nine Fate Palaces."
"Most cultivators," Bing Yuxia replied without opening her eyes, "are not the prime descendant of Ice Feather Palace."
He laughed quietly.
"True."
He lifted his hand.
The Purple Chaos Emerald's soul force brushed against her True Fate like a whisper.
Not overwhelming. Not invasive.
Just a subtle rearrangement of causality, loosening the chains formed from generations of Ice Feather cultivators walking the same narrow paths.
"Try again," he said softly. "This time, don't follow the tracks they left. Walk where you actually want to go."
Bing Yuxia inhaled.
Her Complete Ice Dao surged.
But it was no longer just ice.
Chaos Energy, refined through the Cold Mirror and the Heaven Cutting Tablet, threaded through her grand dao like a second, deeper current—colorless, weightless, frighteningly free.
Her Nine Stars Eternal Prestige flared to full brightness, then compressed inward until it became a single, razor-edged line.
"Heaven Cutting—open the way," she murmured.
The tablet in her hands lit up.
A beam of cold light shot straight upward, piercing the ceiling of the chamber without leaving a mark, passing through stone, array, space, and cloud. It emerged in the sky above Heavenly Dao Academy as a vertical river of frozen time.
Snowflakes formed along its path.
Within the chamber, Bing Yuxia's tenth Fate Palace began to take shape.
Slowly.
Painfully.
Beautifully.
It no longer imitated any old palace form Ice Feather manuals described. In its depths, one could vaguely see an endless plateau of ice under a dark, starless sky. At the center stood an ancient palace built from ice older than eras, and on its rooftop, a solitary figure in blue garments stood with her back turned, hair and sleeves whipping in a blizzard that covered all directions.
Ice Feather Palace's future.
Her future.
Outside, in Ice Feather Palace's main hall in the distant north, elders knelt on one knee, eyes shut.
"…Ten Fate Palaces," one elder whispered, voice hoarse. "Our palace… has birthed a monster."
When the tenth palace finally locked into place above her head with a soundless, crystalline chime, something in the world clicked.
Every Ice Dao within a thousand miles trembled.
Cultivators practicing even the faintest frost technique suddenly felt their circulation clarify, as if someone had wiped frost off a mirror.
Snow stopped falling.
In the training chamber, Bing Yuxia swayed.
Ling Feng was already there.
He caught her before she could collapse, one arm steady under her shoulders, the other hand supporting the Heaven Cutting Tablet so it wouldn't crush her legs.
"You did well," he said simply.
She opened her eyes.
Those usually cool, teasing eyes were a little dazed today, pupils large from exertion.
"Ten…" she murmured, as if afraid the number would vanish if she said it too loudly. "I actually… opened ten…"
"You did," he confirmed, a smile tugging at the corner of his lips. "Congratulations, Ice Empress in training. Welcome to the 'even the heavens will gossip about you' club."
She glared weakly.
"Stop… talking nonsense," she said—but her fingers had already curled into his robe, clinging unconsciously.
He laughed under his breath.
"Reward time," he announced.
Her lips twitched.
"…Reward?" she repeated warily.
"Mm." His tone was warm, almost lazy. "You worked hard. So I'm going to steal you for myself for a while. Just you, me, and someplace cold enough that you can finally drop your guard without melting."
Her face flushed.
"That… that sounds like you're planning something improper," she accused, voice thin.
"I am absolutely planning something improper," he replied calmly. "If you're really against it, you can say no. Otherwise…"
He leaned closer, lips brushing the shell of her ear, his breath warm.
"…you're mine tonight."
Her heartbeat stumbled.
She knew she should shove him away.
She didn't.
"…Fine," she muttered at last, voice so quiet it was almost swallowed by the lingering cold. "But if you say something that would shame Ice Feather Palace, I'll freeze your bed."
"Deal," he said cheerfully.
He wrapped his arms around her and stepped forward.
Space folded like a curtain being pulled shut.
The training chamber, Heavenly Dao Academy, the Eastern Hundred Cities—all fell away as he took her to a secluded ice valley he'd claimed long ago, where old glacial winds howled and no eyes could see.
...
The last quake took longer to arrive.
It wasn't a simple breakthrough.
It was a declaration.
On a night when both moons hung high over the Mortal Emperor World, something strange appeared on the horizon of the Eastern Hundred Cities.
A faint second sun rose.
People were yanked out of meditation by a pressure that crawled under their skin. Cultivators stumbled to windows and rooftops, staring at the horizon where golden light spilled over mountain ranges like molten metal.
"It's midnight…" someone whispered. "Why… is there sunlight…"
At Heavenly Dao Academy, disciples gaped as a distant band of light slowly grew brighter, painting clouds gold.
In Cleansing Incense Ancient Sect, elders staggered out of their meditation caves, faces pale, tears suddenly running down their cheeks for no reason they could name.
On the Everlasting Courtyard's tallest rooftop, Ling Feng sat cross-legged, eyes closed.
The Chaos Emeralds moved in an intricate pattern within his inner void, stabilizing space and time themselves. Every time the golden pressure tried to ripple outward and crush the world, Chaos Force smoothed it, redirecting the excess into a sealed realm only he could touch.
Deep within that sealed realm—carved between Cleansing Incense and Heavenly Dao Academy as if he had taken a slice of reality and hidden it behind the River of Time—Su Yonghuang walked alone through a world of blazing light.
Her Solar Immortal Physique burned at full power.
Complete Yang power surged from every pore, turning her into a walking sun. Flames did not leak from her; rather, each breath refined Yang into purer radiance. The air around her vibrated with so much heat that ordinary matter had long since sublimated into light.
Every step she took left behind lotus-like imprints of condensed yang fire. Those lotuses hovered briefly, then exploded into small suns that floated behind her, forming a path of burning stars.
Around her, ten Fate Palaces revolved.
Each palace was a miniature sun, radiating its own Grand Dao. Some blazed with Extreme Yang pill refinement, others with sect-protecting arrays, others with battle dao that could melt armies.
But their orbit was not perfectly stable.
They tugged at each other, sometimes clashing, sometimes harmonizing, the delicate balance like ten sovereigns sharing one throne room.
To break through to an eleventh Fate Palace in such a state was madness.
Among the legends of the Mortal Emperor World, very few walked this road. Even fewer survived the attempt.
Su Yonghuang knew that.
She continued anyway.
"This sect master," she murmured to herself, voice calm despite the world tearing around her, "has walked too long on borrowed roads."
Her feet left the last patch of solid ground.
She stepped into a void of pure sunfire.
There was no air.
No sky.
No soil.
Only blinding light and the oppressive weight of her own potential.
In that light, she saw echoes of her past, painted in burning gold.
The young girl forced to carry a sect's future on her shoulders.
Elders arguing about her qualification to lead.
Enemies circling like vultures when Cleansing Incense was at its weakest.
The shadow of Immortal Emperor Min Ren hanging over every decision, every word, every gaze turned her way.
She had borne it all with a straight back and steady eyes.
But always, at the back of her mind, a voice whispered: you are only guarding someone else's mountain. Sitting in someone else's seat. Walking someone else's path.
Tonight, she burned that thought away.
"Cleansing Incense is my sect," she said, eyes narrowing as the ten suns behind her flared. "These people are my responsibility. This dao is my path. I will not borrow another's shadow any longer."
Her ten Fate Palaces answered.
They flared to a blinding degree, edges distorting, the heat so intense that even the sealed realm's space creaked.
The sun-world around her cracked like glass.
On the Everlasting Courtyard's rooftop, Ling Feng's brows furrowed slightly.
Without opening his eyes, he reached into the sealed realm and into the blazing world where she walked.
Chaos Energy flowed.
He did not shield her.
He sharpened the pressure.
If he stepped in front of this tribulation for her, if he softened the blow too much, she would always feel that the eleventh palace belonged to his power, not her dao heart.
So he did only one thing.
He anchored the path ahead.
In the blazing void before her, where there had been nothing but white-hot light threatening to erase everything, a single step appeared.
Not a road.
Not a staircase.
Just one step, solid and clear, leading forward into the inferno.
Su Yonghuang saw it.
She closed her eyes.
"…So this is it," she whispered.
Then she stepped.
The sun-world screamed.
For an instant so short it could barely be called time, every ray of light pulled away from her, as if the heavens themselves recoiled from what she was attempting.
Then—
All of it rushed back in.
The ten suns behind her poured their power into a single point above her head—a point so small it was invisible, yet so dense it could crush constellations.
That point expanded into a palace.
It was unlike the others.
If the first ten were suns, this palace was an eclipse.
From the outside, it looked like a ring of gold hanging in the blazing void, its center empty and still.
From within, Su Yonghuang felt it as a terrifying stillness beyond heat—a Complete Yang that had burned through its frenzy and reached a new, quiet, absolute purity.
The Eleventh Fate Palace descended.
It locked into place with a soundless chime that nevertheless rippled through the entire Mortal Emperor World.
In Heavenly Dao Academy, old daoists jerked awake, sweat beading on their brows.
In Cleansing Incense, elders who had survived too many storms dropped to their knees without knowing why, hands pressed to the ground, tears dripping onto the stone.
In distant Ancient Kingdoms, sleeping ancestors frowned, sensing a new sun rise in a sky they thought they had already mapped.
Somewhere in Soaring Immortal Sect, hidden behind countless seals, an old monster opened his eyes. His immortal light flickered once.
In the Eastern Hundred Cities, countless cultivators saw that strange, midnight sun bloom and then slowly fade, leaving behind a lingering golden glow on the horizon as if someone had painted a permanent dawn there.
Back in the sealed realm, Su Yonghuang opened her eyes.
Her aura was different.
Not simply stronger.
More complete.
Before, her Complete Yang power had been like a raging furnace—immense, but always threatening to burn its own foundation if pushed too far.
Now, that furnace had become a sun that could hang in the sky for eras without dimming.
She exhaled.
The sun-world around her folded inward, collapsing into the Eleventh Fate Palace above her head. The blinding void peeled away, revealing a quiet stone platform in the heart of the sealed realm.
Ling Feng was waiting there, leaning against one of the realm's crystallized sun-pillars.
At some point, he had stepped inside, letting the realm rebuild around him.
"How do you feel?" he asked.
She looked at him.
In the past, there had always been a faint, almost invisible line in her gaze when she looked at him. A distance she maintained, even as she let him into her sect, into her plans, into her bed.
Now, that line had blurred.
"Like I am finally standing as myself," she answered.
He smiled, and for once, there was nothing lazy about it. Only quiet warmth.
"That's good," he said softly. "Because I like you like this."
She walked toward him.
The aura of an eleven Fate Palace Ancient Saint—Solar Immortal Physique blazing, dao lines flowing like rivers of light—would have crushed most beings to the ground.
He didn't move.
When she came close enough, he reached out with one hand and tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear, fingers brushing skin still hot from the tribulation.
"Congratulations," he said. "My Solar Wife."
Her ears reddened, the tiniest crack appearing in her composed façade.
"Don't call me that," she said reflexively.
He laughed, low and pleased.
"Why not? Isn't the title accurate?"
Her heart skipped.
Before she could find a proper rebuke, he slid an arm around her waist and pulled her closer.
"You worked hard," he murmured. "So…"
He lowered his head and kissed her.
It was deeper than the earlier kisses in pavilions and courtyards.
Those had been him staking a claim, teasing, testing boundaries.
This one was something else.
Solar Immortal heat and Chaos Force met and intertwined, their daos brushing, testing, then sliding into a frighteningly smooth harmony.
Her arms rose almost on their own, wrapping around his neck. For just a moment, Su Yonghuang, Sect Master of Cleansing Incense, pillar of her sect and nightmare of many enemies, let herself simply be a woman whose man had watched her step into a blazing world and come back stronger.